Words by Angus Bell Young // Images by Jordan Curtis Hughes
1/ the music: is it shit or is it good?
Matt Healy is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, whether you’ve known the band since their 2012 debut or have only seen the interview where he talks about Oasis and think, who’s this guy sorta looks like that rat from flushed away? On stage you can feel the intensity of Matt’s passion from the sweet sweaty dulcet tones belting from his chest, backed by a band dressed to their classic nines against an intricate open playhouse. There’s no question the band have well settled in to what is the last Australian show of their world tour “being funny in a foreign language”. The musicality speaks for itself. And I know it’s not part of the music section but I also know I speak for everyone when I say I really want to lick Matt Healy’s sideburns.
2/ the community: who even listens to The 1975?
Well before I had the opportunity to review this show, I started some research as you do, in to what kind of audience base The 1975 actually procures. And to my astonishment it was about 20% of my mates. But please don’t take that as a sign of poor taste, it’s in fact very much the opposite. While falling within that tricky pop-rock genre, what they’re able to bring their fans is an authenticity, similar to (dare I say) a level of intimacy I’ve only seen with crowd who love artists such as Frank Ocean and Conan Gray.
The audience at Sunday night’s sold out Qudos Bank Arena were lit up, long before The 1975 took stage, packing in for LA-based support Wallice, whose show was a tasteful compliment to their headliner. The crowd loved it. You can tell when a crowd bloody loves it when they put their phones away, like when people at dinner shut the fuck up when the meal is delicious. Sublime.
My point is this: you can tell a lot about an act by the audience they pull; The 1975 showed they were so proud of their fans who could share the love, and sing and dance and cry and sing some more together.
3/ the texture: is it all the same or is there something more?
The texture is unique and a whole new level to the two points above. At a Phoebe Bridgers concert you see a tidal wave of teen girls dressed in black jeans & black docs catching the train home, you worry you might have sat on the wrong carriage. Same as a My Chemical Romance show. Which, again, is no diss on their equally impervious reputations – the point here is what spread of appeal a band can have and how does that affect the experience of enjoying them. The 1975 sit on that wider scale for example, so as they play their second sold out arena show you feel like you’re part of something unique, that they don’t necessarily make an experience tailored to one type of niche, but an accessible one for everyone.
Their show was an almost two hour rodeo of their well known hits like ‘Oh Caroline’ whose spine tingling piano rings out across the Qudos like they recorded it there, and ‘Looking for Somebody (to love)’: its massive 80’s snare with a double kit giving us something to really move to.
The OG classics you know they play for the first three rows, like ‘Sex’ for example, and with an equally energising riff line; Matt was the one who undressed us, and we were right there with him. I’m not sad about my breakup, Matt, you are.
They ripped in to a 25 song with ‘When We Are Together’, climaxing us wit their classic cover of the Backstreet Boys ‘I Want It That Way’ and leaving us on an epic six song encore. Just when you thought it was over, Matt gave us so much more.
Part of the responsibility of reviewing music is to share with you the experience of attending. But the privilege all the same is keeping some of it under wraps. A show such as the one The 1975 gives you is a special one, so if you’re in New Zealand or Japan for their next leg, it doesn’t matter who you are: you’re in for something truly special.
